Monaco is where Formula 1 races on a very tight street track. Because it’s so close-quarters, penalties can completely change who finishes on the podium.
Person
Pierre Casly
Pierre Gasly is a Formula 1 race driver. In this episode, they’re talking about how his Monaco finishing position changed because of penalties that were later overturned.
Term
P3
P3 means the driver finished third. Third place is on the podium, so it’s a major result compared with finishing lower.
The stewards are the race officials who decide penalties in Formula 1. They can review what happened and change the result if they think a penalty was wrong.
A five-second penalty means officials add five seconds to a driver’s race time as punishment. If it’s removed later, the driver can move back up the results—like Gasly to P3 here.
To rescind a penalty means to officially cancel it after a review. In Formula 1, rescinding changes the official race result because the driver’s time penalties no longer apply.
The pit lane is the area next to the track where teams do pit stops. Drivers have to follow a speed limit there, and breaking it can lead to penalties.
In F1, there’s a maximum speed drivers are allowed to go in the pit lane. If the officials’ speed measurement is wrong, it can still cause a penalty even when it seems like the driver was fine.
In F1, teams can protest an incident or decision after the race, using an official process. The protest is reviewed, and if the evidence meets the rules, it can lead to a change in the outcome.
A review hearing is the official meeting where officials look at a team’s complaint and evidence. That’s where they decide whether the original decision should stand or be changed.
FOM is the organization that runs Formula 1 and handles official timing and measurements. Here, they’re the ones who admitted their pit-lane speed measurement was wrong.
Speed is calculated from how far something travels over a measured time. If the officials used the wrong distance, the computed speed can come out too high and trigger a penalty.
This is a sensor at the start of the pit lane that helps officials time and calculate speeds. If its setup or reference distance is off, it can make everyone’s speed look wrong.
Person
Etton Senna
This sounds like a misheard name for Ayrton Senna, one of the most famous F1 drivers ever. The point is that a past track/officials issue affected what happened, similar to how timing measurements are being questioned here.
“Locking up” means the wheels stop turning while you’re braking. That usually happens when you brake too hard for the road grip. The car can skid and take longer to slow down.
The “pit limit” is the maximum speed you’re allowed to go in the pit lane. Drivers have to slow down early so they’re under that limit before the key point. If they don’t, they can get penalized.
A drive-through penalty means the driver has to go through the pit lane during the race, following the speed rules, without stopping. It usually loses time because the pit lane is slower than the track.
In this context, “Formula One” means the organization and officials that oversee the rules and decisions in F1. If there’s a dispute, they’re the ones who can review it.
FIA is the organization that makes and enforces the rules for Formula 1. If they “look at what happened,” it means they review what went wrong and whether the rules were handled correctly.
A safety car comes out when the track is unsafe. It slows everyone down and can completely change how the race plays out, including how bad a penalty ends up being.
“Wheel to wheel” means two cars are racing very close together. The point is that when it’s that tight, officials may be less likely to agree that something clearly wrong happened.
The front wing is a big aerodynamic part at the front of an F1 car. It helps the car stick to the track and turn predictably. If it comes off in a crash, the car can handle very differently right away.
A 25-second penalty means officials add 25 seconds to the driver’s race time. That can drop them behind other cars in the final results. Here, the hosts say it happened because of a pit lane speeding decision.
LIVE
Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Big One podcast with Matt and Tommy.
Emergency edition!
The most emergency emergencies of Formula One News.
Something that I cannot believe of the Monaco.
This has actually happened, but Pierre Casly has got his Monaco podium.
Now, of course, fantastic news for Casly to score lots of points to essentially get the trophy,
but the one thing that he wanted that he didn't get was to stand on the podium,
so I kind of feel a little bit sad for him at the same time.
True. Yeah, that would have been absolutely epic.
Of course, you say it's the breaking news of all breaking news,
and it is because, you know, who cares about Lewis Hamilton going to Ferrari
or Max Stappen potentially going to Mercedes?
You know, this is affecting our predictions championship,
and that is, you know, the biggest thing that matters in Formula One, of course.
The family predictions. The family predictions, even more important.
No, less important as the constructors, no one cares.
So, to get you all up to speed, Casly's been reinstated into P3.
The stewards have rescinded both of the five second penalties imposed on Pierre Casly
for the speeding in the pit lane incidents.
Now, the process of this was that because Casly had not served his five second penalties,
it had a right to review.
We will talk about everybody else that had a penalty and served it shortly.
Yeah.
But this opened up an opportunity for Alpine to question it,
and I, fair enough, right, because I'd seen on boards,
I'd seen the telemetry and things to show, I think,
especially the second Casly penalty, where he was cruising down the pit lane
at what looked like 50 kilometers an hour when the limit is 60 supposedly.
I saw the saying, yeah.
And nowhere near the essential speed limit, and still got a penalty for that one.
So, Alpine, they basically protested.
They brought new evidence, which is something that they have to do
in order to protest something that's been adjudicated during the race,
and it was deemed admissible, which was then taken to the review hearing,
which I will now tell you.
So, during Thursday's right of review hearing,
F1's timekeeper, FOM, admitted there had been an error with the distance measurement
in the pit lane from which speeds are taken, with the loop at pit entry,
where all six drivers were found to be speeding, turning out to be 77 centimeters
shorter than expected, causing average speeds to be overreported.
Wow.
What an absolutely enormous mistake that is.
Did I not say on the podcast that there was a moment where Etton Senna crashed in the 80s,
and he said, no, 100 percent, the barrier must have been moved.
And I said it was something similar to that, where all these drivers must be doing like,
they know exactly where to do, they do all their practices,
everything in Formula One is to the millimeter and everything like that.
And I said, surely there's an error here, and that's exactly what's happened.
And no wonder they're so adamant about it,
because I watched the very same clip as you did.
I'm sure the people have seen it listening to this, where normally,
when you get a pit lane speeding penalty, it's at a track like a Monza or something,
and you're locking up, you're going deep on the brakes,
you've maybe not slowed down enough.
But it was quite clear that he was, I think, very, very cautious.
You can see that his pit limit is on well before the line.
He's slowed down.
He's being coached throughout as well.
Because I think there was talk about cutting and being very careful.
So for them to, of course, it's a podium for Alpine, which is massive.
So of course, they're going to do everything they could anyway.
But it was quite clear that they were doing everything to make sure it happened
and really truly believe that this was a mistake.
And wow, I mean, it takes Formula One a lot to admit that they've made a mistake.
And here we are, that they have.
And a result has been changed, which I'm sure a lot of people will be surprised about,
because we don't tend to normally see that, particularly when it's such a big moment,
like a podium finish as well.
You do say it takes a lot for FOM to admit that they did wrong.
No, it takes someone to literally go to a hearing in order for them to admit they've done wrong.
Are you telling me they would have come out with this voluntarily,
if there hadn't been a proper team statement to say, look, we're going to appeal this.
So the big question now is what the others must be thinking.
So the penalties, and forgive me if I've missed any out,
but I believe this is all the ones that got speeding in the pit lane penalties.
Hamilton, who served his five seconds.
Russell, who I think will be the most peeved of all, because he got five seconds,
and then a drive-through due to his team not serving the penalty correctly.
Piastri got five seconds, but served it, and so did Colopinto.
That's a lot of people to be caught out with penalties.
Of course, Hamilton, it didn't affect, because Charlotte Clair was made to serve exactly the
same penalty. Russell, of course, it affected massively, but not necessarily the five seconds.
That would have been fine. I don't think that would have actually affected his race,
but the domino effect that that caused with his drive-through, of course, massively impacted him.
Piastri, I don't believe that it affected him either, if I'm not mistaken, and then Colopinto
as well. But overall, the big talking point has to be George Russell, and what happened with him.
Any for his thoughts, I'm sure we'll get a, he'll be asked probably by all the media now,
and Russell has been extremely vocal about his luck this year, or lack of,
and how he believes, he said many things about, oh, the gods don't want me to win this championship,
and things like that. Obviously, he had the DNF in Canada when he was leading the race,
and then Monaco went horrendously bad for him. I feel like I'm right in saying, and I've seen
a lot, and this is what his fans were mentioning as well, that George was kind of adamant about
just going to the line, getting the penalty and everything done afterwards, and then
seeing what happened if they could protest it. So I think he's going to be even more annoyed now,
seeing another team have fought their driver's position, to the point where they're going to
the courts and things, and a hearing with Formula One to make it happen, and Russell
wanted to do exactly this, and stay out, I don't care about the penalty, we'll drive to the line,
and then we'll, I'm going to finish last anyway, so we might as well get the time penalty at the
end of the race, if I get disqualified, whatever, and we'll, you know, go through it afterwards,
and they didn't do that, and now he's got to witness a driver that did do that,
or didn't serve it, get his time back because it was a mistake, so he must be absolutely fuming
right now, because had that not happened, he's probably finishing the race in second or third.
I'm just still completely baffled that this even exists as a mistake, you know, this is not a
five or ten centimetre mistake, 77 metres, 77 centimetres, which is, you know, a big old measurement,
so, yeah, of everyone that's coming out of this, the FIA really have to look at what on earth
happened here, and it just seems like carelessness on their part to not check things ahead of the
weekend. Now, you mentioned about drivers taking the penalties and during the race, and not, and,
you know, the wonder is, does this open a can of worms? For me, I think that maybe a couple of
worms slip out of the can, but not all of them, because a lot of the time it makes sense for
teams and drivers to serve their penalties during the race, because you never know later on, there
might be a safety car that changes the race, backs the pack back up, and things like that.
With Monaco, obviously, it's such a unique situation where you're not, you're not gaining
anything, you can't pass, right? So there's no real gain from serving the penalty, although still
teams are kind of used to that being the way to go, because, well, what else are we going to do?
We just have the five seconds at the end. So every other race track, I think, you know, if it's,
you know, collisions on track, so on and so forth, it usually is a reasonable slam dunk,
unless teams have, you know, extra evidence to show, which they never usually do. Whenever they've
sort of questioned or appealed certain things, claiming they have more evidence, they usually
get turned away, especially when it's, yeah, like sort of wheel to wheel action or whatever.
But for this one, I think it's such a unique experience moment for the sport that I don't
think it'll really change the way teams go about racing and holding all these penalties to the end
of the race, because a lot of the time, as I mentioned, there is something to be gained,
just not around Monaco. Yeah, for sure. It is such a bizarre incident and one that is
such a sign of protest that I think, you know, say someone like Gasly, he knew,
and everyone knew that everyone was getting penalties. So in that mind, you're kind of
already thinking, this can't be my fault, or at least there's something unusual going on here.
Whereas I doubt famous last words when it happens in Spain, but we see someone
taking their front wing off in a collision, they feel like they've been hard done by,
because they don't think it's their fault, or it's a 50-50 incident, and then going, actually,
no, I'm not serving my penalty, because I'm now going to go to the stewards and ask about it at
the end and say, well, actually, this happened. I can't see that. And if they did, I think the
FIA and Formula 100 have a dim view on it, and start to maybe clamp down even more. Or, of course,
you're not serving penalties, they could change things there. But I don't see it happening,
or opening a kind of worm simply because it is just such a bizarre incident.
One that we've never seen before, that I can certainly remember in Formula One, where a pit
lane was shorter than they remembered, and because of the unique way that speed is done over distance.
So, yeah, I don't think this is going to cause a mess, other than probably George Russell,
fuming and being very upset by it. Another guy to mention is probably Hajar, of course,
who's lost a podium at Monaco, which is, of course, a fantastic achievement.
Indeed, yeah, for Hajar, he's got the opposite of Ghazli, where he loses everything, bar the
experience of actually being on the Monaco podium, and that's something I'm sure that will live with
him for the rest of his life. Of course, he'll have lots of success for it. He'll be hoping for
the rest of his career as well, but yeah, it's a shame for Hajar. It's not like he loses a huge
amount, goes down by one position, still gets a lot of points, and yeah, he'll lose his Monaco
trophy, but he's driving for Red Bull, so you'd hope that he'd be able to get more trophies in the
future. But yeah, sad for him, because you could tell that meant quite a bit to him.
Tommy, your dad had a generational prediction
for Monaco that Ghazli would be on the podium. It was cruelly taken away from him with 25
second penalties that were due to speeding in the pit lane, which wasn't speeding.
We're now going to call him to let him know. Please pick up, please.
Please pick up. If he might not know. He genuinely doesn't. He might not actually know, because
it's just happened. 20 minutes ago, unless he is literally on. Come on, come on, please.
Please. Hello. Hi, dad.
How are you? I've got some breaking news for you, have you heard?
Ghazli has got third place.
Yeah, how does it feel to have the greatest prediction in P1 podcast history?
Formula one history. Formula one history, maybe. Share as your thoughts. We're recording,
we're recording right now. Share as your thoughts.
Absolutely amazing. I saw the thing that it was, the challenge had been made
and was going to be taken further. And yeah, he's been reinstated as of about five minutes ago.
I was trying to work out that I take it both five second penalties.
Yeah, it was both. Yeah. I like how your mum sounds more excited than your dad does.
Somebody else that had a five second penalty is now third instead.
No, he's got it. He's done it. So do I get one point because I got half a point for being so
so good. Here we go.
And it was very generous of Matt and the family to give me half a point,
even though he didn't officially finish third.
Right, now he is officially third. Surely that's double points.
Okay, my dad wants double points. Thanks, dad. All right, we're going to continue with the podcast,
but it's all right, dad. Well, I'll give you a call back afterwards and we'll have a catch up.
Well done, dad. Bye.
Oh, what a prediction. He wants double points. And what I have to say to that is similarly
to Hamilton, Russell, Piazzari, Colopinto, all of the five second penalties during the race,
that was served and done. The half a point was served. Okay, we've moved on. We've moved on to
how dare you. No, it's been overstated. The P1 right to review from the Bellingham's has been
issued now and it's now open to the comments. No, no. Yeah, fair enough. Of course, it's a full point.
I mean, double points similarly to this overruling of the penalties. If I give double points for
this one, we're opening up a can of worms here. However, oh, God, am I going to regret this?
It's so good. Yeah, I laughed. I think yeah. All right, double points,
double points. Well done. Well done. You know it's good when you, the most competitive person I know
on this planet. I think that's a great point. I think that shows great. Well done, Dean. Well done,
Bellingham's. And if Fernando Alonso is on the podium this weekend, I'm taking five points for
my dad even though he retracted it. Well, there we go. Bit of a, yeah, another emergency podcast.
Hope you enjoyed it. We had to jump on this because I think it deserves a chat about it.
Congratulations to your dad again, Tommy. Well done. Hope he's happy with the double points
because I certainly am not, but it was fully deserved. What a prediction. The greatest prediction
we've ever seen. And I, you know, it might be up there as one of the greatest predictions ever
full stop in the history of Formula One. So well done to Dean. Tommy, what are your final thoughts?
Final thoughts are what a crazy, just if Monaco wasn't crazy enough this year, we're still talking
about it on the Friday of the next race, still overturning decisions and stuff. One of the most
bonkers races I've seen. But yeah, now to lock in to the Barcelona, Catalonia, Grand Prix,
and see some on track action today, which is crazy because it's weird to be talking about
the previous race so late on. But indeed, 40 minutes until free practice one starts.
Recording. So there you go. Thanks, everybody. See you soon. Lots of love. Take care. Bye.
About this episode
The hosts kick off with an emergency Monaco update: Pierre Gasly’s third-place result has been reinstated after stewards rescinded pit-lane speeding penalties. They dig into how Alpine challenged the decision, and why FOM admitted a distance-measurement error that skewed pit-entry speed calculations for all drivers. Along the way, they explain what pit-lane speeding looks like in practice and how hearings can flip outcomes. They also debate FIA oversight, Monaco’s unique “can’t pass” dynamics, and look ahead to Barcelona.
We've got some breaking news - bigger than Lewis Hamilton to Ferrari, bigger than any Max Verstappen rumour... Pierre Gasly's been given his Monaco podium back! We react to a bizarre process that's unveiled a baffling error from F1 and wonder what the other penalised drivers must be thinking.
Our brand new live show 'Super Podding' is coming to the UK and Amsterdam this autumn! Get your tickets here: http:/tix.to/p1live
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